


Shadows Cast

by lady_mab



Series: That which we cannot see [1]
Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Blind Character, Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 02:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11682549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_mab/pseuds/lady_mab
Summary: Drabbles surrounding Blind!Lockwood.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These are set in the same 'universe' as "[They Had Lights Inside Their Eyes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7568299/chapters/17217619)". You don't have to have read one to read the other, but they go together nicely :)

It hadn’t mattered that much at first -- at least, what is what Lockwood had always managed to convince himself. He lost his sight at nine, and he had time to learn how to cope. 

With George, and later with Robin, it hadn’t mattered much. They were friends, but they were professionals. They learned how to work around Lockwood’s blindness. Even after Robin died, and Lockwood’s condition became a _handicap_ and a _disability_ , it hadn’t mattered. 

It wasn’t until they hired Lucy Carlyle that it began to matter. 

Her voice was clear and bright, the memory of sun filtering through a high window in the library over the chair he used to curl up in with Jessica. Her footsteps were quiet, her thoughts were loud, and for the first time in a long time, he missed being able to see. 

They were leaving a client’s house one late spring day, Lockwood sandwiched between George and Lucy as they exited through the narrow halls, and he was just about to comment on how nice the old man had been. But then he heard the soft click of the front door closing, and suddenly George and Lucy were howling with laughter. 

“I can’t believe--!” George started, already wheezing for air. 

“The same ears!” Lucy finished, and he heard her footsteps stumble down the stairs. 

“The ears? The eyebrows!” And this brought on a fresh round of laughter. 

It was a good sound, Lockwood figured. It had been so long since he heard that level of laughter from anyone. But still the sun couldn’t burn off the slight chill that hugged his spine as he stood patiently waiting, hands on the hilt of his rapier. When the sound started to abate to giggles, he placed a polite smile on his face and asked, “What was so funny?” 

He probably shouldn’t have asked. It always brought a wave of pity and guilt when they remembered he couldn’t see. He heard George clam up immediately and mutter something that he didn’t bother trying to interpret. 

Lucy, who was still new, who hadn’t had to sit through one of these awkward moments yet, said, “Oh, sorry, I completely forgot--” Because that is what they all say. 

So it was a bit of a surprise when her hand was suddenly against his arm, then slipping through it, then she was leading him forward. “Mr Jenkins had a little old dog that sat in his lap the entire time.” 

“Yes, I could hear it.” He didn’t know where this was going, what she was intending. He could hear George trotting to catch up with them. “What kind of dog was it?” 

“Oh, I don’t even know. I’m not an expert on them. But it was small and mostly hairless except for these excessively fluffy ears that stuck out of the side of its head like pigtails.” 

“And eyebrows?” he asked, because that is what George had said. 

“Horrendously fluffy things like little caterpillars on his head! Oh, you mean on the dog. They were longer on the dog, but sort of the same idea.” 

It certainly put a very weird mental picture in his head, because he couldn’t quite separate where the dog description and where the human description began. 

It wasn’t until George added, “Don’t forget those tufts of fur on each of the legs,” that a laugh was finally startled out of Lockwood. 

“Did Mr Jenkins have tufts of fur on his arms as well?” he asked, and George and Lucy laughed so hard he thought perhaps the old man might have. 

“No, thank God, no he didn’t,” Lucy said, her arm still tucked in his. “Just a normal button-down and slacks.” 

George gasped from his other side, and softly, under his breath, muttered, “What if they were just _beneath_ his clothes?” 

The three of them laughed all the way back to the train station, and Lockwood’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much.


	2. Chapter 2

George was, as usual, in the library. Lockwood was no good in there, so he tended to avoid the place if he could help it. Everything was soft and muffled and he didn’t quite enjoy how stifling it was. 

Lucy offered to keep him company, to which George grumbled a haughty response that had something to do with he worked better alone anyway. 

Just like before, they walked arm in arm. They didn’t need to, because Lockwood detested the thought that people would want to help him because he was an ‘invalid’. No walking stick, no seeing-eye dog, and no caretaker. 

But with her, it was different. He had learned that she tended to wander when they walked together. That she would let her pace lag, or her legs carry her too far ahead. She was always looking for something, straining to find something that wasn’t there. Arm in arm was more for her benefit, to match her steps to his, than it was to help him walk.   
She only released his arm when they sat down on a bench. He could hear the trickle of water nearby, and the sun warmed his upturned face. At his side, Lucy sat still and quiet. 

Lockwood drummed his fingers over his thigh for several moments before he could muster up the courage to ask. “Lucy?” 

“Hm?” The sound was no more than a hum, light and musical, not entirely committed to a more solid answer. 

Still, he pushed on. “What do you look like?” 

He heard her fidget, shifting without answering. “Like a girl, I suppose.” 

A huff of laughter escaped him. “You’re going to have to be more specific.” The only girl he could remember was his sister, and even she was starting to fade with the years. 

“Well, I don’t know. What do you look like?” 

The question caught him off guard, and he turned on the bench in the direction of her voice. “That’s not fair. You know what I look like.” 

“Yes, I do. But if I have to describe myself, you should have to describe yourself.” 

He didn’t want to tell her that he had no idea what he looked like -- that it had been far too long since he last looked, that so many things must have changed since then. So instead he asked, “What does George look like, then?” 

Lucy laughed, and he realized that he didn’t want to tell her about the way he thought she might look like the way her laugh sounded. That in his mind’s eye, she was bright and clear and unafraid. “He’s about my height, I suppose.” Her hand bumped against the side of his head, right below his ear, to indicate it in relation to him. “He sort of looks like a corn puff.” 

He laughed so hard he doubled over, clutching his stomach as he did so. “What?!” 

“Shapeless, you know?” 

“No, I don’t really know!” 

“Pasty sort of coloring. Pale skin and hair that is like a mop on his head. Big glasses.” 

“This is giving me an awful sort of image.” 

“No, I’m pretty sure whatever it is you’re imagining is pretty spot on.” 

The laughter between them subsided and settled once more into comfortable silence. But Lucy was restless, shifting at his side in a growing clamor. 

Before he could ask her what was wrong, if he had said something to offend her, she leaned over so her shoulder pressed to his and, in a quiet voice that made him lean in to hear her better, she began to describe herself to him. 

(Short dark hair that curled around her chin in a bob, dark eyes that sat a bit too far back in her face, a nose that sat a bit too far forward. The scars on her hands from when she first started learning how to wield a rapier, the cracked thumbnail from an investigation last week that had her trying to pick at crack in the wall, the hole in the sleeve of her sweater that she worried at constantly. Lockwood took each of these and stored them away carefully, filing them alongside the lilt of her voice, the warmth of her touch, and the strength at his back as they hunted ghosts.)


End file.
